Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins (26 March 1941-) was an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist, and author. In 1976, he wrote The Selfish Gene, which created the idea of gene-centered evolution, and he also wrote The Blind Watchmaker in 1986 and The God Delusion in 2006, both of which denied the existence of God.

Biography
Richard Dawkins was born in Nairobi, Kenya in 1941, and he was an Anglican until he was in his teenage years, when he came to support evolution over creationism. He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford in 1962 and became an assistant professor of zoology at UC Berkeley in 1967. Dawkins returned to Oxford in 1970, and he became a highly-regarded professor. In 1976, he wrote The Selfish Gene, which stipulated that life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities. In that same book, he coined the term "meme", the behavioral equivalent of a gene. Dawkins became known as a militant atheist, criticizing creationism and unrealistic religious themes. In 1986, he wrote The Blind Watchmaker, followed by The God Delusion twenty years later; both of these books argued against God's existence. Dawkins was also a notable supporter of the UK Liberal Democrats, having left the Labour Party in the 1970s.